We got back from Cincinnati and I've got tons to do. How come the work before and after a vacation seems almost as long as the vacation itself?

We had such a good time. We went to an outdoor concert and listened to "Huey Lewis and the News." Love his harmonica playing!
Saw the most fantastic fireworks I've ever seen in my life. The show lasted much longer than I'd ever seen one go on. It was at least 30 minutes long. With lots of my favorite type of fireworks, the one that "blooms" like a Chrysanthemum and then twinkles as it fades out.

Got to do a little shopping in a fun store - Ikea. Love to look around there! We almost bought dd a new bed there, but saw the same model in the clearance section. Dh turned his Super Engineer Powers on it and looked it over closely. He decided that the bed wouldn't hold up to dd's abuse. It had this terrific cubby hole storage under the bed, but I agreed with Dh that she would be stuffing so much in there that she'd "blow out" the back of it. It was just a piece of 1/16 chipboard. She'd have poked a hole through that in no time. Are you listening, Ikea designers?

Here's the bed we almost bought:


Found a half price book store, so I got dd the last two of the Twilight books as part of her birthday. The first in the series was supposed to be part of her birthday as well, but she finished all her reading on the car ride up, so she got to read that one in the car.

All in all, it was a good trip, but I'm glad to be home.

This summer is flying by. It seems as if these blue-skyed June days melted away like ice cream on a hot afternoon playground. July is barreling down on me. There's so much I meant to do this summer and still haven't gotten done.



Doesn't that look delicious?

Tonight for dinner I made rice pilaf. Dh is so proud of his home-grown tomatoes on the back porch. He brought in a handful late this afternoon so that I could include them in the pilaf. I almost took a great big bite out of this plump juicy orange one. (Orange because I ordered heirloom tomato seeds for dh earlier this year.)
Take a look at what I found when I sliced open this sweet-looking orb of juiciness.



I was shocked. There wasn't a single blemish or spot on the outside. So how the heck did the worm get in there?
Made me very glad I'd sliced the other tomatoes into pieces with no signs of "tenants" inside them. At least, I don't think so... hmmm.... what's a little extra protein, after all, I tried to tell myself. But I shudder at the thought and won't be biting into anymore of dh's tomatoes no matter how pretty they look.

I can't decide. Do we want to vacation at Yellowstone Natl Park or spend the week in the Pacific NW? We'll have to pick soon, to purchase the airline tickets. Truthfully, I'd love to see Paris, but that's not gonna happen.

And dh gets home tonight from another trip to DC. I'm glad. This is getting old....
And, speaking of old, I was shocked to hear that Micheal Jackson had died. Goes to show ya, money and fame don't guarantee happiness.

I'm off to Sam's for groceries. For dinner tonight, I think I'll make a Shepherd's Pie, only with chicken or turkey instead of beef. Mashed potatoes can hide a lot of veggies that my youngest would normally fuss about.

Talk about fun...
I had a colonoscopy last week and everything I'd ever heard about the procedure was true. The prep IS worse than the procedure itself. And my usual hinkey charm was in full effect, meaning that something unexpected and odd always pops up. The doctor's nurse emphasized that I get the prep fluid prescription filled ahead of time and like the good little rule-follower I am, I did this. Not that it did me a bit of good.

Bright and early, the day before the procedure I diligently read the directions and pick my flavor. (I opted for citrus-berry from the choices.) I add the water, shake the overgrown, gargantuan-sized jug and feel sticky water spray everywhere. Turns out, somewhere along the way, my jug had been sliced by a boxcutter right across the grooved lip on the side. No way to see it ahead of time, no reason to expect it to be there. So I end up making a mad dash back to the pharmacy for a replacement. After a few rounds of question/answer I get a replacement container and go home to start the prep all over again. (Keep in mind, I'm not allowed to eat anything the entire day, so by the time I leave the Target pharmacy, it's 9:45 am and I am already hungry/irritable.)

The rest of the morning I tell my girls not to eat/cook anything that smells good. This rules out such culinary delights as brownies, popcorn, chocolate in ANY form and basically anything I can smell that makes me drool. By this time, I am definitely not the only miserable person in the house, but misery DOES love company. Or at least in my case, likes someone else in the neighborhood with them.

While the girls munch on grilled cheese sandwiches, I slurp down my yummy bowl of lemon Jello. Since I was still hungry and it was too early for me to start getting nervous about tomorrow's procedure, I decided to eat another item from my "allowed" list, chicken broth. After one swig of the broth, I decided the dog might enjoy this more than me. Since, he had surgery last week also, I figured he'd be an ideal candidate for sympathy. So while he chomped down on his chicken broth-soaked dog food, I gave him my unadulterated opinion of all pre-op medical procedures and life in general. He listened closely as long as the kibbles held out.

The afternoon passed slowly with me drinking tons of apple juice and lemonade while the girls finally went upstairs to their rooms to get away from my charming personality. Discretion IS the better part of valour and a 12 year old is the soul of discretion listening to her MP3 player behind the closed door of her room.

Then 4:00 PM rolled around - the witching hour. The directions say I'm to begin drinking 8 ounces from the mongo-jug every 10 to 15 minutes. If this was a video, I'd fade to black at this point with loud chugging sound effects in the background. It seemed the next few hours were never-ending rounds of trying to choke down the prep liquid and wait for the results. The information pamplet said the "results" would begin within two hours, but not to be surprised if it took longer....It took longer. After throwing up twice and getting myself emptied out, I think I slept maybe two hours that whole night.

The alarm goes off at 5:20 am, so that dh and I can be at the hospital by 7:00 am. I fill out reams of paperwork, get shuffled from point A to point B, back to point A, to Point C and finally into a hospital gown, you know, the kind where your hiney hangs out from behind, but under the circumstances, better for "driving conditions" that day. The nurse slaps on ECG pads and that's interesting cause then I have a 3-D, live with sound effects indication of just how torqued up I am. With a heartrate of +100 and it boinging up to 115 whenever someone wearing scrubs enters the room, there's no way I can act like I'm not nervous. After 3 complete strangers comment on this and tell me to relax, I'm even more nervous. Then without a word, the nurse must have started the valium drip cause my head was spinning and I decided that the whole thing wasn't "really that bad." I remember saying something to the doctor about "drive carefully in there" and then I was out.

When you wake up in the recovery area, the first thing the nurses tell you is to ahem... pass gas, fart, toot, cut one, let 'em rip, cut the cheese, sound the alarm, pull dad's finger.... ( you get the idea.) They don't let you go home til you've done that, so, since I wanted to go home, you better believe I cooperated to the fullest of my ability. To the fullest of my something- anyway.

We celebrated our youngest dd's birthday this evening. The birthday party is later this week, but tonight we went out to eat at Lulu's, ate tons of seafood. The girls played volleyball while we waited for a table. That place is always so crowded. I couldn't believe the wait tonight was right under 2 hours. We had to park in the overflow lot within eyesight of The Track.
When the band wished dd a happy birthday, she told the guitar player to play her something jazzy cause she's old enough for it now. He cracked up.

After dinner, we played a round of putt putt at the pirate-themed mini golf place.
Dh got a hole in one on hole #14 and Grace got a hole in one on hole #10. I was happy to make par and hit the cup.

So happy birthday to my daughter, who's no longer a little girl.
Where did the time go?

I found my sunglasses. I thought I'd left them Monday at our friends house. But nope, there they were- squirreled away in the bottom of my beach tote. Figures! Since I'd called and put out an APB on them. They're my favorites. But cheap sunglasses are like a cat with nine lives. They just keep showing up long after you've given up on them.